"Fracas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interrogations of the spirit were practised. It merely answered questions by rapping 'Yes,' or 'No'. On one occasion Sister Anthoinette was 'levitated'. Finally, the spirit appeared bodily to her, said farewell, and disappeared after making an extraordinary fracas at matins. Montalembert conducted the religious ceremonies. One case of hysteria was developed; the sufferer was a novice. Of course it was attributed to diabolical possession The whole story in its pleasant old French, ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... mink's neck. They must have tried that same thing before, because this time he heard the mink scream, too, though he was doing something besides. For about half a minute Sam said he couldn't hear or see much of anything except the fracas. Then just about as swiftly as the two ermine had jumped into the fight, they jumped out and began to circle around the mink again. The next time they tried to get the neck hold only one of them slipped back. The other got his teeth ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... he said at last, and he made a great effort to appear indifferent and unconcerned, "I wish for your daughter's sake that M. de St. Genis had chosen some other time to make this fracas. We who have learned chivalry at the Emperor's school would have hit our enemy when he was in a position to defend himself. This, obviously, I cannot do at this moment without trespassing still further ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... would hardly have known him as he sallied forth the next day. He wore the bandages on his head, which was cut by his fracas with the fake professor, and, in addition, he had tied one about his jaw, as though he had ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... what mends and sews, come to the back piazer, and beckoned me to run there. She said ther must be a 'high ole fracas', them was her words, agoin' on in Marster's room, for he was cussin' and swearin', and his granddaughter was jawing back very vicious. Sez I, 'Who'? Sez she, 'His granddaughter; that is Ellice's chile'. Sez I, 'How do you ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... were reviving from their stunned condition and crawling or staggering away from under the hoofs of the crazed horses and mules, made it unthinkable that any explanation of the mistake which had led to the fracas could be possible, or if possible, that explanation could quench the fires of animosity which blazed in the breasts of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... about a fight in her house. She took the witness-stand with evidences of backwardness and proverbial Bourbon verdancy. The Judge asked her in a kindly voice what took place. She insisted it did not amount to much, but the Judge by his persistency finally got her to tell the story of the bloody fracas. ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... fu'st one I'se gwine tell, lest I git mah brains better sot on dis heah fracas!" He gave a low chuckle, adding: "Lor', chile, Miss Liz ain' gwine know nuthin'. Ole Zack kin keep mum an' fool de smartes' of 'em! Didn' I fetch Marse John's djeulin' pistols one Sunday mawnin' right under de Bible layin' ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... cries, exclamations, bursts of laughter, jokes, a whistle, swelled the tumult. Here the leg of a bench gave way and precipitated those on it, to the delight of the spectators; there was a dispute for place; and a little beyond a fracas of glasses and bottles. It was Andeng, carrying a great tray of drinks, and unfortunately she had encountered her fiance, who was disposed to ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Two fracas, however, must be chronicled, for after both, the girl's dismissal hung on a thread. The first was when Mrs. Cliffe, mother of Tommy Cliffe, who was nearly killed in the field, being discovered to be an ill sort of woman, and in the habit of borrowing ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... swift confusion of voices; laughter. "If you should hear a pistol shot, Jake, ride quickly back and tell My Lord there was a fracas and you ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... sudden a fury, the tumult being augmented by the crashing fall of a table, as caused me at the last moment to stand and turn. A dozen voices crying simultaneously, "Have a care!" and "Not here! not here!" and all looking the same way, I was able to detect the three principals in the FRACAS. They were no other than M. de St. Mesmin, Barradas—a low fellow, still remembered, who was already what Saintonge had prophesied that the former would become—and young St. Germain, the eldest ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Infantry. With the 9th was the Naval Brigade, commanded by Captain Prothero. At six o'clock an active artillery duel began, the guns of the foe being splendidly posted, and their range, as before-said, carefully calculated. Their shells burst with appalling fracas over our batteries, but the brave British gunners never swerved. They gave the Boers some smart and telling replies, and presently, on withdrawing their guns to a new position, quite defeated the calculations of the enemy, whose shells now began ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Duchess had just returned from Palestine, and it was beginning to be whispered she had gone there with a young man. The talk turned again on the morality of London, and exciting stories were told of a fracas which had occurred between two well-known men. So their desks had been broken open, and packets of love letters abstracted. New scandals were about to break to blossom, other scandals had been ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... oranges to the mob, that they might get off without any further disturbance: having thus regained their hack, after a thousand frights, and after having received an abundant share of the most low and infamous abuse applied to them during the fracas, they at length reached St. James's, vowing never more to go after fortune-tellers, through so many dangers, terrors, and alarms, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... a fact that the following examination of three of these non-descripts took place at Bow Street a very short time back, in consequence of a nocturnal fracas. The report was ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... cheery little fracas," said Lund, mopping at his face, "we'll mebbe have a nice, quiet, genteel sort of ship. My gun went overboard, didn't it? Better let me have ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... grand cas, Icas, Que toujours tracas ou fracas Vous faites d'une ou d'autre sort; C'est le diable ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could scarcely be avoided. He had struck Capperne down after a violent dispute in which the Australian, accused of sharping, had given him the lie, and Capperne's friends, the only witnesses of the fracas, were prepared, if Capperne died, to swear away Druro's life and liberty. As it was, they moved heaven and earth to have him put under arrest—"in case of accidents"—but their efforts were crowned with neither appreciation nor success, and Druro went about ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... prudent one, for the musician did not seat himself until he had carefully examined the sheet-iron shield inside the railing, which was attached in such a way that it could be sprung up by working a spring in the floor and render him fairly safe from a chance shot during a fracas. ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... to concoct a plan for escape, and it was necessary for them to go on to the restaurant in Longacre Square. It occurred to Hugh that it would be timely to explain why they were not dressed for dinner. They were on their way to the hotel to dress when the fracas took place. The plain-clothes man was not interested. Evidently the authorities did not apprehend much trouble from the two young people; their guardian performed his duties perfunctorily and considerately. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... know of no one to blame but yourself; surely you must have known what a fracas your infernal song ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... this interruption, and the extraordinary fracas with which it was accompanied, he, who might be supposed to be most affected by it, manifested none of the usual symptoms of fear or surprise. He listened intently, until the last sound had died away, but it was with expectation rather than with alarm. Arising ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... how soon the next train is due—any train, going north or going south—I don't care which. If it is soon, look for a middle-aged woman in a striped dress, and if you can't prevent her getting on, without a fracas, follow her yourself and never quit her—telegraphing me at ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... by about twenty other darkies, who, attracted by the noise of the fracas, had gathered within a safe distance of the cabin. They went off with Jim, to raise the other plantation hands, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... not waited to ask for my card, but had contented himself with planting one blow from the shoulder on my left eye, before I could get upon my legs. And my revolver. Well, I had not had the ghost of a chance to use it. It was in my pocket. Fifteen minutes after the fracas, Mrs. Pinkerton came to my room, completely dressed, and insisted upon coming in to hear all about it and to overwhelm me with thanks and admiration. I was as modest as heroes proverbially are, and then and there told her never to refer ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... remorse, he returned to the street and began a wild and fruitless search all night. Then he accidentally learned that the Nettie B. had been in port two days and that her crew had been ashore on the night of the fracas. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... unfortunately, according to one's point of view, this deponent was not a spectator of the fight in the House of Commons this afternoon, having been himself previously knocked out by a catarrhal microbe possessing, as the sporting journals say, "a remarkable punch." He therefore gives the fracas an honourable miss. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... tella your honare of the fracas. I vas vait on monsieur a—choses, and make ma compliment avec beaucoup de grace, ven monsieur vas read de news papier; so I say, is your honare ready for be dress? De great man say, "No—, d—n de barbare." [In a ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... this medical history of the Russian campaign I feel tempted to give a description of this most frightful, most cruel of all battles in the history of the world in which about 1,200 cannon without interruption dealt destruction and death; fracas and tumult of arms of all kinds, the harangue, the shouts of the commanders, the cries of rage, the lamentations of the wounded, all blended into one terrible din. Both armies charged with all the force that terror ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... one or the other; at all events, there was some fracas or other. I believe her mother was—hum, hum—you understand—she couldn't be swallowed by the Kynastons at any price; they must have been thankful to get out ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... what that last veiled allusion meant. The weeks had slipped away since the fracas in front of the Silver Dollar. The enemy had made no move. But cowpunchers returning to the ranch from town reported that both Meldrum and Charlton had sworn revenge. It was an even bet that either one of ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... the following autumn to the installation of a swimming instructor at Brimfield and the addition of swimming to the list of "required studies" for the boys of the four lower forms. The instructor came to the school twice a week and put in two very busy hours there. So you see that fracas between Steve and Eric Sawyer that evening strangely enough resulted in important consequences and, since a knowledge of swimming is a most ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... audience of me, to come and look me in the eye, to say you wanted my advice on a pressing matter, that I think marks almost a new phase in the long developing history of father and son. And your account of the fracas struck me as quite reasonably frank and honest. "I didn't seem able," you observed, "not to go on being ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... grandchild had talked Kew's character over, the girl, you may be sure, having spoken feelingly and eloquently about his kindness and courage, and many admirable qualities. She kindled when she heard the report of his behaviour at the commencement of the fracas with M. de Castillonnes, his great forbearance and good-nature, and his resolution and magnanimity when the moment ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... caught his lapel and tore it, and Lynch, indefatigable in battle, managed to graze his chin with a blow meant for one of the disappearing boys. Other cops were battling each other, going after the kids and clutching empty air, cursing and screaming unheard orders in the fracas. ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... came to stare at me as a Stranger. But unluckily Spying his own Figure in the Glass, he made a spring over the Tea Table that stood under it, and shatter'd the Glass to pieces, and falling-back upon the Tea Table, made a terrible Fracas among the China. This Exploit was so sudden, and accompany'd with such a Noise, that it surpriz'd me, and perfectly frighten'd Mrs. Spotswood. But twas worth all the Damage to shew the Moderation and good humour with which she ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... reflections on these interesting political topics, they know that it would be unsafe to publish them, for, as we have seen, if they venture even, to cry too loudly 'Roumania for the Roumanians,' some hectoring neighbour instantly takes the alarm and threatens to withdraw its ambassador; and in case of a fracas between any two such neighbouring States, even the rights which she at present enjoys would hardly be respected. Her policy is therefore tolerably well defined, and it was ably set forth in the royal speech which contained that dangerous reference to Austrian pretensions. Peace is ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... is to meet Lady B(etty?) in the country, and come up with her to town. What a fracas we shall have when my Lady Dowager arrives; and if she does not, I see no end of her vexations. The Admiral says that she talks of ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... voice calling to a dog team kept Malcolm standing with a fine forkful of meat in his hands long enough so greatly to tantalize the team below as to start a serious fight. This woke him from his reverie. "Ah, Ah!" he shouted, and, jumping down right into the middle of the fracas, soon had his dogs busy again with the frozen blocks which constituted their food ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... that as they came out from prayers, Upton seized Eric's hand, and slapped him on the back, after which they had a good laugh over their own foolish fracas, and ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... pinned down at last, has he?" and there was a note of satisfaction in his tone. "I was beginning to think that between this fracas with the spy, and his galloping around the country, he would have no time left for business. I should not think you'd consider it worth while to go pleasure-riding such ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... trouble of this kind. Seizing tent pegs, and with cries of "Hey Rube!"—the time-honored signal for a battle of this kind—the striking canvasmen rushed into the fracas. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... "certain liveliness" which is likely to make repairs necessary. Apart from Swedes who used to come round pillaging, this church seems to have had its private, as it were parochial, troubles, a serious one in 1510, for instance, when a fracas arose one day during service between some Bohemians and some Hungarians. A fracas was always conducted with rapiers and daggers in those days, and must have been a picturesque, if inconvenient, event. It was all about a lady too, which sounds quite likely: it was said ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... continued its forward progress, and as those waiting clubs began to swing and play there was a confused exchange of shouts, yaps and yelps that must have filled a listener's heart with wonder, providing he did not know the meaning of the fracas. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... wus takin' a big chance. I'll be thar, though; yer kin bet on thet, an' ready fer a fight, er a foot race. This is how I size it up—if thar ain't no row, I'm just ter keep still, an' lie low; an' if a fracas starts I'm ter jump in fer all I'm worth. Is ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Pactolian Spring, which he had rashly turned into the Ditch, and obliged him to transfer the onerous duty of writing the editorial on the Big Bluff Extension to the hands of the Honorable Abner Dean, Assemblyman from Angel's. The loss of the Honorable Mr. Dean's right eye in an early pioneer fracas did not prevent him from looking into the dim vista of the future and discovering with that single unaided optic enough to fill three columns of the "Star." "It is not too extravagant to say," he remarked with charming deprecation, "that Indian Spring, through its own perfectly organized ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... many spots in the vicinity are rife with Middle-Age incidents of robbing and righting. This region was the plague-spot of the country for its freebooting fortresses,—Lourdes, Mauvoisin, Trigalet, with their adventurers always ready for a fracas,—the strongholds, as has been said, of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... with "Elle et Lui," an obvious answer to "Confessions of a Child of the Age, "De Musset's version—an uncomplimentary one to himself—of their separation. The poet's brother Paul rallied to his memory with "Lui et Elle," and even Louisa Colet ventured into the fracas with a trashy novel called "Lui." During all this mud-throwing the cause of the trouble calmly lived in the little Italian town of Belluno. It was Dr. Giuseppe Pagello who will go down in literary history as the one man that played Joseph to ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... their satisfaction. The Jacobins continued inflexible, and here, as well as everywhere else, supported injustice by violence. As the patriotism of the husband, more than the charms of the wife, was known to have produced this indecent fracas, which for upwards of a week interrupted the plays, all anti-Jacobins united to restore order. In this they would, perhaps, have finally succeeded, had not the bayonets of the Hamburg soldiers interfered, and forced this precious piece ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... came up. A terrific swirl, carrying clouds of dust and leaves, swept over the country and battered down the crops, uprooting plants and shrubs in its mad fracas. Perrine could not withstand this whirlwind. As she was lifted off her feet, a deafening crash of thunder shook the earth. Throwing herself down in the ditch, she laid flat on her stomach, covering her mouth and her eyes with ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... fracas last night, Your Highness, outside a certain palace gate." He pronounced the word to rhyme with jackass, but Gungadhura was not in a mood to smile. "An escaped elephant bumped into the gate and bent it. The guard took to their heels; so I've locked 'em all up, ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... better of Rupert, the letter would be his; a moment would destroy it and give safety to the queen. I do not suppose that he spent time in thinking how he should escape arrest at the hands of the police whom the fracas would probably rouse; if he did, he may well have reckoned on declaring plainly who he was, of laughing at their surprise over a chance likeness to the king, and of trusting to us to smuggle him beyond the arm of the law. What mattered all that, so that there was a moment in ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... spirit and my master's temper as well. Our social state was now perfectly intolerable. We were on the eve of a general fracas. This last scene occurred on Tuesday; and on Saturday evening following, without counsel or advice from any ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... second lieutenant and Quartermaster Vincent. Mr. Flint had been on the quarter-deck, and had heard the report of Christy's revolver when he fired. Calling Mr. Camden and the quartermaster, he has come to ascertain the cause of the fracas; and the sight was certainly ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of which the court party had been guilty. Individuals were despatched into all the nearest houses, and elsewhere, for the purpose of discovering what evidence might be obtained towards sustaining a prosecution. It was soon ascertained, however, that no one had seen the fracas, except the parties in interest,—all Peters's company being so accounted,—and that, consequently, no hope remained of any legal redress. On this, some proposed measures of club-law retaliation, some recommended reprisals ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... concealed. I was stung by being subject to such unjust suspicions, and, instead of taking the prudent and proper course, conscious of the purity and innocence of my feelings with respect to our young visitor, I continued, nay, redoubled, my zealous devotion. Instead of healing the breach that this fracas had made, I braved it out; and what before was only the polite attention, which I was always in the habit of paying to an interesting female, became now, to all outward appearance, an enthusiastic attachment. Unfortunately, too, the young lady, feeling indignant ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... employing language that was anything but refined. From words to blows, for suddenly they began to assault one another with vigorous smacks. The toilettes and faces of the fair contestants were soon damaged; and, loud cries of distress being uttered, the carriage was stopped, and, attracted by the fracas, some gentlemen hurried to render assistance. As a result of their interference, one of the damsels was expelled from the vehicle, and the other ordered the coachman to drive her to her hotel. This second lady is familiar to the public by reason ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Oct. 8.-Siege of Prague raised. Great preparations for the King's journey to Flanders. Odes on Pulteney. Story of the Pigwiggins. Fracas at ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the soft depths of slumber, I waked with an almost convulsive start, and a remembrance of the cry I had heard or dreamed. I was sure it must have been the latter, although, I told myself, there might actually have been some fracas in the street which, in my sleep, I had confused with ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... prudently absenting himself for a while, or else he was one of those who had escaped through the rear door. Most of the Mexicans were natives of Perilla, and one and all swore that they were as innocent of evil intent as unborn children. They had merely happened to be there getting a meal when the fracas started. The miscreants who had drawn knives on the two whites were quite unknown to them, and must be ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... late, there were no police about, and it seemed only too probable that the fracas would end in a tragedy. The labourer was a burly fellow, shorter than Shiel, but far broader and heavier, and any one could see at a glance that Shiel stood no chance against him. Lilian Rosenberg, at her wits' end to know ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... King's hand was forced by the revolution in Vienna and the five days' insurrection in Milan to declare war on Austria. At Milan the liberal committees prohibited the use of tobacco which was a monopoly of the Austrian Government. This led to a fracas which was the immediate cause of the insurrection, and the Austrians were driven out of Milan. Simultaneously with the movement in Lombardy there was a rising in Venice, the Austrians were driven out and a Republic was proclaimed. This proclamation was ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... Metellus Nepos was sent home from Asia in aid of the conspiracy, and got himself made Tribune, and stopped Cicero's speech. In conjunction with Caesar, who was Praetor, he proposed his new law for the calling of Pompey to their aid. Then there was a fracas between him and Caesar on the one side and Cato on the other, in which Cato at last was so far victorious that both Caesar and Metellus were stopped in the performance of their official duties. Caesar was soon reinstated, but Metellus Nepos returned to Pompey in the East, and nothing came of the ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... gone to bed, thinking the two girls might be reconciled in church and come home together. Her husband, not so sanguine, had remained in the library till after midnight, ready to play the part of peace-maker should any fracas occur. He appeared in the hall when poor dead Daisy was carried through the door, and stared in ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... following either his own inclination or the advice of his chum, decided not to resign his position as a prefect, and in a few days' time the majority of the school had wellnigh forgotten the fracas at the Black Swan. ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... situation after the fracas very much excited the compassion of the populace; they beheld that veteran bleeding on the streets, who had so often gloriously fought the battles of his country! The above account is as accurate as we could learn; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... nervous; things upset him so easily. Yet, after we had taken care of Miss Langdale and matters had quieted down, I thought I might get some idea of the cause of the fracas and asked him if he knew of any reason. Why, he looked at me kind of blankly, and I swear he acted as though he had almost forgotten it already. I tell you, ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... every plan by which it could be possible to safeguard her. She might be seized upon returning from a tournament or entertainment; but this was improbable, as the queen would always have an escort of knights with her, and no attempt could be successful except at the cost of a public fracas and much loss of blood. Cuthbert regarded as out of the question that an outrage of ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... fracas," remarked Hilton, glancing at these last Foxhounds. Then he proudly petted Dander. "Didn't need yer purp ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... wakeful tossing. Rexhill, with tousled hair, wrapped in a bathrobe, from the bottom of which his bare ankles and slippered feet protruded, sat on the edge of his bed, impatiently chewing an unlighted cigar while he listened to Moran's account of the fracas. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... company or so. Soldiers off duty were lounging on the shady side of the village street, missing the larger delights of Strasburg, wondering if Richmond had fallen and where was Stonewall Jackson, when the fracas, a mile away, broke upon their ears. Secure indolence woke with a start. Front Royal buzzed like an overturned hive. In the camp beyond the town bugles blared and the long roll was furiously beaten. The lounging soldiers jerked up their muskets; others ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... prints of every kind in England, than in any other country in Europe. Now, as it is impossible to fill them constantly with politics, and as the taste of different readers must be consulted, every barbarous adventure, suicide, murder, robbery, domestic fracas, assaults, and batteries of the lower orders, with the duels and divorces of the higher, are all chronicled in various publications, disseminated over Europe, and convey an idea that we are a very miserable, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... in here," Lucy said, hauling him back into the living room where a number of people who had been enjoying the domestic fracas suddenly broke into loud and animated chatter. "Dr. Hildebrand was telling ...
— The Doorway • Evelyn E. Smith
... vagueness, of the Pope, I used to shut my eyes tight and clench my fists. We welcomed any social disorder in any part of Italy, as likely to be annoying to the Papacy. If there was a custom- house officer stabbed in a fracas at Sassari, we gave loud thanks that liberty and light were breaking in upon Sardinia. If there was an unsuccessful attempt to murder the Grand Duke, we lifted up our voices to celebrate the faith and ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... crowd and reach his home in safety. As luck would have it he almost directly came upon a house of ill-fame to which a band of drunken soldiers were in process of laying siege, and considering that a stray shot, should one reach him in the fracas, would be equally as unpleasant as one intended for him, he made haste to retrace his steps. Resolving to have done with it he pushed on to the end of the Grande Rue, now gaining a few feet by balancing himself, rope-walker ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... eagerly; "do they, really? Tell 'em so, tell 'em so. Nothing so likely"—he dropped his voice to a whisper—"nothing so likely to catch old Fuller's vote as that. He's mad on music. I haven't ventured to call on him for a long time. We had quite a little fracas years ago about these overhanging boughs. They're quite an eyesore—quite an eyesore; but he won't have 'em touched; won't endure it. Joseph, you can carry the ladder home. We'll go in, Ferdinand—it's an admirable opportunity. I've been wondering how to approach ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... unwarrantable historical skepticism. The story is told of Sir Walter Raleigh, that when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and was engaged in writing his History of the World, he heard the sounds of a fracas in the prison-yard. On inquiry of those who were concerned in it, and were on the spot, he found so many contradictions in their statements that he could not get at the truth. Whereupon, it occurred to him ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... a fracas with this worthy. One day, after he had been drinking sherry with a sprig, he swaggered into the yard where I happened to be standing; just then a waiter came by carrying upon a tray part of a splendid Cheshire cheese, with a knife, plate, and napkin. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... talked about music, with great display of knowledge concerning things operatic. First one, then another went to the piano and ran through some motif that the rest hummed a little first, then shouted in a rousing chorus. Then they drank more, amid a perfect fracas of talk and laughter. Ivan Petrovitch and Athanase Georgevitch walked across and kissed the general. Rouletabille saw all around him great children who amused themselves with unbelievable naivete and who drank in a fashion more unbelievable still. Matrena Petrovna smoked cigarettes ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... that play is about from reading the first act, and what is the author's name? I might have to produce a little concrete information in the fracas," the eminent producer paused to inquire just as he was ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Cassagnac, the editor of Le Globe, was the brother-in-law of de Beauvallon, and Emile de Girardin, the proprietor of La Presse, had systematically held him up to ridicule in his columns. Hence, when the news of the restaurant fracas leaked out among the cafe gossipers, the result was that everybody said: "il n'y eut qu'une voix pour dire 'c'est le Globe qui veut se battre avec ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... great care of your teeth? Pray have them put in order by the best operator at Rome. Are you be-laced, bepowdered, and be-feathered, as other young fellows are, and should be? At your age, 'il faut du brillant, et meme un peu de fracas, mais point de mediocre; il faut un air vif, aise et noble. Avec les hommes, un maintien respectueux et en meme tems respectable; avec les femmes, un caquet leger, enjoue, et ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... friends," I said, "I am ignorant of the cause of this fracas, except that this young gentleman had pretensions himself to the hand of the lady whose name affects him ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... nephew of my brother who was on the other side in that ancient church fracas? Bless you, I understand. What a good hater your sister is! Such a tenacity in holding bitterness from one generation to another commands admiration of a certain sort. As for Jim, he's a nice little chap, and he is coming to live with me until ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sont passes, et l'ile et le rivage Tremblent sous ce fracas monstrueux et sauvage. Ils vont, viennent, jamais fuyant, jamais lasses, Froissent le glaive au glaive et sautent les fosses, Et passent, au milieu des ronces remuees, Comme deux tourbillons et comme ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... Truskey of this city with her sister Mrs. Louise Schwendlund of Appleton went to visit their mother who is seriously ill at the home of her son, John Beckett, in De Pere last Wednesday, they were greeted by another sister who, it is alleged to have started a fracas in which one sister is said to have slapped the other in ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... pie was also turned over into Rondeau's new hat, greatly to the satisfaction of Tiger and the other dogs, who had mingled in the fracas! The riot was finally quelled by Mr. William Middleton and Dr. Lacey, Uncle Joshua declaring he "wouldn't interfere that night if the niggers all ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... David out of a sly and shifty eye. He had only one. The other had been gouged out years ago in a drunken fracas. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... This annual fracas assumed a particularly lurid character in 1860 and the printed program was especially objectionable, a fault quite characteristic of those days. The night had been a wild one and when it became known that Dr. Tappan was to discuss ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... A fracas, which has lately happened in Boston, becoming a serious matter, I will give you the details of it, as transmitted to Mr. Adams in depositions. A Captain Stanhope, commanding the frigate Mercury, was sent with a convoy ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... too well accustomed to his wild son's ways to require any explanation of the cause of the fracas. Just giving one glance at his slaves, to make sure that neither was killed, he left the room as hastily as he had ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... door, which was slightly ajar, was suddenly pushed open with some fracas, and in came the stout landlord, supporting with some difficulty an immense dish, in which was a mighty round mass of smoking meat garnished all round with vegetables; so high was the mass that it probably obstructed his view, for it was not until he had placed it upon the table that ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... fracas on shore was explained, and at once a search for the daring boys was instituted. Lights flashed, hoarse voices were heard calling across the water, and there was as much confusion on the river as there had been on land. One could not see as far as on shore, however, and the means of getting ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... responded the floor-manager, cheerfully. "You're a Yank!" had screamed the Colonel, profanely qualifying the noun. "Get! you border ruffian," was the reply. Such at least was the substance of the reports. As, at that sincere epoch, expressions like the above were usually followed by prompt action, a fracas was confidently looked for. ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... time to get off with the booty he swindled from my aunt, when his creditors from Virginia were at his heels. He fled to the British at New York, where he rioted for a few months, was finally stabbed by a soldier in a fracas, and died the next day. He was about ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... "Duval has his arm about you, and the Camden boys are herding those devils down below. You had some fracas from the way things look. How many men ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... countryman finds the town a chop-house, a barber's shop. He has lost the lines of grandeur of the horizon, hills and plains, and, with them, sobriety and elevation. He has come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile to public opinion. Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares and disasters. You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects are their own; but in cities they have betrayed you to a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... for the soldiers in Blancheville. This particular payday was of ill omen for the battery. A number of the boys indulged too freely at the cafes in Chantraines, with a to-be-regretted fracas resulting. A guard of military police was put on at Chantraines following ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... officers at Chengchiatun responsible for the occurrence as well as the severe punishment of those who took direct part in the fracas. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... fictitious unanimity. We forget that, while we agree about the abuses of things, we should differ very much about the uses of them. Mr. Cadbury and I would agree about the bad public house. It would be precisely in front of the good public-house that our painful personal fracas ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... his Common Place Books FitzGerald has entered from the Monthly Mirror for 1807 the following passage of Rousseau on Stage Scenery—'Ils font, pour epouventer, un Fracas de Decorations sans Effet. Sur la scene meme il ne faut pas tout dire a la Vue: mais ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... whole Whig population of Edinburgh. The investigation disclosed nothing the effect of which was not ludicrous; and the Duke of Queensberry, whose aim was at that time to conciliate the two factions, tried all that he could to turn the whole fracas into a joke—an unlucky frolic, where no ill was meant on either side, and which yet had been productive of a ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... George Robert Fitzgerald, commonly known as "Fighting Fitzgerald," from the number of duels in which he took part, was a man of good family, noted alike for his gallantry and recklessness. A fracas which was the result of his distasteful attentions to Mrs. Hartley, a well-known actress, had made him notorious in 1773, some years previous to his introduction to Mrs. Robinson. His life, which was one of singular adventure, ended ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... men expected any comment, approval, or familiarity from their leader on account of their little fracas, they were disappointed. This was a good thing. The lumber-jack demands in his boss a certain fundamental unapproachability, whatever surface bonhomie he ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the roomers in Gannett Hall began to converge on Teeny-bits' room, and by the time the Western Whirlwind had thrown off his coat and laid hold on his opponent again, they were crowding in at the door and craning their necks to get a view of the fracas. ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... Dean, gently distressed. "I heard something...That was the result, I'm afraid, of his fracas that morning in the High Street; he must ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... love-letters when that pious lady supposed that she read her prayers, because her eyes were fixed upon her breviary. Without relating to any one this discovery of his Josephine's frailties, Napoleon, after a violent connubial fracas and reprimand, and after a solitary confinement of her for six days, gave immediate orders to have the chapels of the Tuileries and of St. Cloud repaired; and until these were ready, Cardinal Cambaceres and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... his success thus far, and bent upon ending the fracas as soon as possible, he met his adversary with a heavy swing which just cleared the man's ear. Deveaux struck, but missed also. Pressed backward, he clinched to save himself, and in this position, where nobody could see ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... disgruntled because we had not patronized them. They blamed their neighbours for it. Almost before we realized it a pitched battle was in progress in which spears were thrown and men and women were laid out in a generally bloody fracas. One man got an assegai through his throat and it probably inflicted ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... the police in the execution of their duty' you are sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour in the Mounted Police Guard-room at Calgary. You are also required to make restitution for all damage caused as the result of your fracas." ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... the draught at a gulp, and instantly flung the glass at the Inca's face. It missed him, however. There were signs of a fracas, but the door of the watch-house swung opportunely open, and Jack was dragged from the cart and hustled within. The crowd, with a crowd's ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Your chief, Perry Larkin, told me he was sending you down, and what manner of hombre you were. If Larkin can trust you, I'm going to take a chance. I thought I had Wiley's number, but I learned something to-day, aside from that little fracas, that makes me doubt I've given him credit for his limit of crookedness. Mr. Thode, do you figure that Starr Wiley is enough of a man to be a very ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... ce fracas d'armemens, de preparatifs et de menaces dont le royaume retentit pendant quelques annees, s'evanouit en un vain bruit. Je ne doute point que, dans les commencemens, le roi ne fut de bonne foi. Sa vanite s'etoit laissee eblouir par un projet brillant qui alloit fixer sur lui les yeux de l'Asie ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... in his eyes. They showed surface only—a hard, bright surface, almost glazed, devoid of all expression save deadly seriousness. Bert's eyes showed madness. The eyes of the Irishmen were angry and serious, and yet not all serious. There was a wayward gleam in them, as if they enjoyed the fracas. But in Billy's eyes was no enjoyment. It was as if he had certain work to do and had doggedly ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... third in line in the expedition's hierarchy. As such he participated in the endless controversy dealing with overall strategy but only as a junior member of the firm. Amschel Mayer and Leonid Plekhanov were the center of the fracas and right now were at ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... empty scabbards on stirrups, the metallic ringing of bullets on helmet and cuirass, the rifle-shots, the roar of the shells exploding swelled into a very hell of sound. And, above the infernal fracas rose the heavy cheering ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... of tongues. Rumour in Cloisterham (Miss Ferdinand will honour me with her attention) was no exception to the great limner's portrait of Rumour elsewhere. A slight fracas between two young gentlemen occurring last night within a hundred miles of these peaceful walls (Miss Ferdinand, being apparently incorrigible, will have the kindness to write out this evening, in the original language, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... other policemen came running up, and took a hand in the fracas. While some went for the one who was belaboring the representative of the law, others made for the second burglar. But he was more muscular, if possible, than his friend, and he laid about him with such vigor that three ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... am used to it," he said, with a grin. "I can't drink nothin'. Stave me, Rollins, but the first thing I'll be running foul of some of these Dagos, and I don't want a fracas until I see the lay of the old man. He's a queer one for sure, hey? Did you ever see a skipper with such a look? Sech bleeding eyes—an' nose, hey? Like the beak of an old albatross. He hasn't come out to lay the course yet, ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... had by this time joined in the fracas, and he, crossing the field and seeing the trouble, ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... authorities as Bill Dalgren and Seth Evans. They had been surrounded by officers a month before, at a place where they were engaged in the manufacture of bogus half dollars; but had cleverly managed to escape with some of their dies and other material. One of them had been injured in the fracas accompanying this failure to catch ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... itself, this village fracas was to have a lasting effect upon the career of Thomas Borrow. He was given to understand by his kinsmen that he need not look to them for sympathy or assistance in his wrongdoing. The Borrows of Trethinnick ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the scene of an appalling fracas this afternoon. Shortly after two o'clock a quietly-dressed middle-aged man, at present unidentified, was observed stealing cautiously from the Tube station with a thick wad of Treasury notes in one hand ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... was a general row, for Billy's friends at once backed him in resenting the blow, and, though the fracas lasted but a few minutes, there were several burials next day as ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... and his fondlings of that pretty "kretur" with the family countenance; his chivalrous exploits on horseback, and mimic capering round the lists of his chequered tilt-yard; his unhappy differences with the partner of his bosom, and her lamentable catastrophe; the fracas with the sheriff's substitute; and his interview with that incomprehensible personage, 65the knight of the sable countenance, who salutes him with the portentous address of "schalabala! schalabala! schalabala!" his successive perils and encounters with ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... [Lat.] [Ovid]. complexity &c 59.1. turmoil; ferment &c (agitation) 315; to-do, trouble, pudder^, pother, row, rumble, disturbance, hubbub, convulsion, tumult, uproar, revolution, riot, rumpus, stour^, scramble, brawl, fracas, rhubarb, fight, free-for-all, row, ruction, rumpus, embroilment, melee, spill and pelt, rough and tumble; whirlwind &c 349; bear garden, Babel, Saturnalia, donnybrook, Donnybrook Fair, confusion worse confounded, most admired disorder, concordia discors [Lat.]; Bedlam, all ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and passed quietly out, and Mr. Challoner could hear the laughing remark with which he met and dismissed the half-dozen men and women who had been drawn to this end of the hall by what had sounded to them like a fracas between angry men. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... fracas imminent, hastily intervened. "If you will permit me for a moment," he said, "there is a little explanation I should perhaps make ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... received all his wounds during the fight. He might have easily lost his tongue by the thrust of a lance between his teeth. An axe or a sword might have easily cut off his right hand. He had only one eye; would it be strange therefore that the other eye was lost in the fracas, for he threw himself madly upon the whole garrison of Szczytno. Alas! Jurand! His last joy in life trembled for a moment in the heart of the old Knight of the Cross. So, should Jurand survive, he ought to be set free. At this, Zygfried remembered a conversation he had had once with Rotgier ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... into his face. Henry took the chess-board and struck Louis with it so violently that he drew blood, and would have killed him if his brother, who happened to come in, had not prevented him. The two brothers took to flight, but a great and lasting war was the consequence of the gambling fracas. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... I've settled for the furniture. And Muldoon says when it gets goin' again the Sea Siren will do a big business on account of the fracas. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... nature seems to have been the principal cause of his troubles. The numerous anecdotes current of him turned mainly on this characteristic, so different from the modesty and reticence of Fari-nelli. Metastasio, in a lively letter to the Princess di Belmonte, describes an amusing fracas at the Viennese Opera-House. The poet of the house, Migliavacca, who was also director of rehearsals, became engaged in altercation with the singer, because the latter neglected attendance. He rehearsed to Caffarelli in bitter language the various terms of reproach ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... saturating his shirt, and running slowly to the earth floor. There were two flesh wounds upon his head—one above the right eye and the other extending entirely across the left cheek from below the eye to the lobe of the ear—but these he had received earlier in the fracas. From crown to heel the man was a mass of blood. Through his crimson mask he looked at the pile of bodies in the far end of the room, and a broad grin cracked the dried ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... &c. v.; jangle, brabble[obs3], cross questions and crooked answers, snip-snap; family jars. polemics; litigation; strife &c. (contention) 720; warfare &c. 722; outbreak, open rupture, declaration of war. broil, brawl, row, racket, hubbub, rixation|; embroilment, embranglement[obs3], imbroglio, fracas, breach of the peace, piece of work[Fr], scrimmage, rumpus; breeze, squall; riot, disturbance &c (disorder) 59; commotion &c. (agitation) 315; bear garden, Donnybrook, Donnybrook Fair. subject of dispute, ground of quarrel, battle ground, disputed point; bone of contention, bone to pick; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... cried the latter. "I'd rather go over than give up the halliards. If I had two hands I would very soon end the fracas, but I haven't a friend to hold the ropes while I ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... ride with the best of the cavalrymen. And in the fracas in Domingo there were two cavalry companies ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller |
